1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electronic equipment enclosures and interfaces for interfacing the enclosures with cable assemblies. More particularly, the present invention provides a modular electronic equipment enclosure for housing telecommunications, signaling, or other electronic equipment, including, for example, repeater and doubler cards, wherein the modular enclosure comprises a sealed cable interface module for separably interfacing the enclosure with a cable assembly.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is often necessary to house telecommunications, signaling, and other electronic equipment in protective enclosures so that the equipment may be located where needed, often being mounted on telephone poles or within subterranean manholes. For example, ever-increasing use of wide area networks (WANs), particularly the Internet, and other telecommunication innovations has increased demand for high-speed, high-bandwidth digital telecommunications services, such as ISDN, (X)DSL, and T1, in homes and businesses. Due to signal propagation limitations, these digital services require special electronic equipment, including repeaters and doublers, to repeat signals when end users are too far from a provider's central office.
Recently developed telecommunications equipment enclosures are designed to hold large numbers of repeaters or doublers, and have sophisticated passive heat dissipation features. Unfortunately, these enclosures and their raise or lower, position, and install, particularly in the tight confines of a manhole, potentially resulting in worker injury or damage to the enclosure. It is common for technicians to hard-wire a cable tail to the enclosure and use the cable tail to lower the heavy, fully-loaded enclosure into a manhole. It will be appreciated that this places a great deal of stress on the cable and often breaks or otherwise damages one or more seals on the enclosure. After the enclosure has been lowered into the hole, it must be positioned against a wall or rack and then held in place while being bolted or otherwise secured thereto, which is difficult given the weight and size of the enclosure.
Adding to the difficulty of installation is a very stiff and substantially inflexible cable assembly which must be interfaced with the enclosure to deliver and return electronic signals and to provide pressurized air. The cable assembly is typically hard-wired to the enclosure, making it labor-intensive to interface. Furthermore, hard-wiring makes the cable assembly and enclosure difficult to separate when desired, such as, for example, when removing, changing, or upgrading the enclosure of the housed electronic equipment. Additionally, limited space available in most mounting locations can exacerbate installation problems by preventing positioning of the enclosure so as to affect the best orientation for receiving and interfacing with the cable assembly.
Similar problems are encountered when installing and maintaining other electronic equipment enclosures, including signaling equipment enclosures, such are used, for example, in controlling traffic signals.
Due to the above-identified and other limitations of the current art, a need exists for an improved electronic equipment enclosure.